Thoughts about "The Doctors" - January 1971

Another month's worth of episodes of "The Doctors" has aired on RetroTV. Below are my thoughts on what has aired for the month of January 1971.

With Martha's help, Rico was able to return to Chicago to be with his mother Stella. He would finish school there as he came home as a hero saving the hospital from a drug dealer. He was sad to go though, as he came to love Nick and Martha at Hope Memorial. This marked the end of Richard Niles stint on the program.

Dr. Gellar (Bruce Tumerin) was to continue to help out at the hospital, even though he was diagnosed as having a tumor on his spine by Althea. This probably is the last we'll see of him as Dr. John Morrison took his position of head of psychiatry at the hospital. John and Althea had a past, which caused things to be rocky as they kept it quiet. When Althea found out that the hotel apartment building she looked at had John as a resident, she decided to move to Nick's building. John used his position by convincing Matt to agree to a project that involved the clinic. That way Althea would have to work with him. Althea told Matt she was too busy to help beyond giving John the files. Maggie overheard John and Althea arguing about this, so Althea finally shared what was going on with her best friend. The ridiculousness of this is Althea was gone for months so Maggie probably would be the better choice to help John with files about clinic patients anyway.

Greta was still having problems. She hated Althea and hid the sewing machine the doctor gave her for Christmas. When Althea tried to sew a dress on it for one of Greta's dolls, Greta tore it up, and later whenever she saw Althea she would run and hide. This wasn't good for anyone in the Powers house, and Althea wanted to move out even if Gellar thought she shouldn't move out so Greta wouldn't believe she is controlling the situation. Mike also got treated badly by Greta. Mike passed medical school with Dr. Iverson's help. Hank couldn't help Mike and Matt's relationship, which got even more strained. Mike wanted Matt to treat him like anyone who worked at the hospital and not his son. The irony being if Mike wasn't Matt's son he would have never remained at Hope Memorial after not just destroying the lab, but also causing Greta's illness. At least Mike's research about lithium derivatives to help Greta looked promising in Nick's point of view. Nick may get a new lab assistant name Toni. She's Billy's half-sister though he has no idea he has a half-sibling. Dan wasn't happy that Carolee passed her name along to Matt for this reason. He didn't want her to be in Madison, even if they are the only family she has in the world.

Carolee and Dan's new marriage has left the honeymoon stage. He's becoming controlling telling Carolee how to dress for work, getting upset over Billy giving Carolee a gift for her office and the clock. Anything he doesn't like gets moved to the playroom, which is off screen so we don't see it. He hated Carolee's pin that had been a gift from Steve and told her to get rid of it. Instead Carolee gave it to her mother, as she appreciated the fine craftsmanship. Carolee's health didn't get better as she was pregnant with Steve's baby as Althea had a pregnancy test run on the nurse. Since Althea is her doctor, she can't share any information. Cathy told Carolee the truth about what happened with Steve, absolutely nothing as Steve was clearly devoted to Carolee. Carolee gave up on Steve based on a lie of a jealous woman. Now that Carolee gave up her rights to Steve, Cathy admitted she was still interested in Dr. Aldrich. At the end of the month, Carolee told her mother the truth that she was an awful wife, because her husband wasn't why she was pregnant.

Those were the highlights of January 1971. Now Carolee Campbell (Carolee) and David O'Brien (Steve) join the special credited group of James Pritchett (Matt), Lydia Bruce (Maggie), Elizabeth Hubbard (Althea), and Gerald Gordon (Nick). Also this month had a replacement Steve and flashbacks, which makes me wonder if they had extra time as O'Brien wasn't available to work due to illness. I'm glad that we found out more about Althea's past with Morrison.